Summary: This course provides an overview of fiber optic communications technology and applications. It assumes some general technical background in telecommunications, but no prior knowledge of fiber optics. The basic components of an optical fiber communication system include the transmitter (laser and LED), the fiber (multimode, single mode, dispersion-shifted) and the receiver (PIN and APD detectors, coherent detectors, optical preamplifiers, receiver electronics). These technologies are defined, their basic operating principles summarized, key parameters affecting system performance identified, and representative values given for both practical systems and current research results. Factors affecting application (both point-to-point and networking) are identified. Emphasis is on physical principles, performance limits, and technology and application directions.

Summary: As point-to-point links become more sophisticated, single-channel and WDM systems must dynamically adapt to changing environmental and traffic conditions in order to avoid SNR degradation. This scenario erupts into a much greater challenge when channels originate at different locations, as is the case with add/drop multiplexers, reconfigurable cross-connects, circuit-switched networking, and, eventually, optical packet switching. This course is intended for people interested in non-static and reconfigurable WDM systems and networks.

Summary: Early diagnostics of diseases is the key to treatment, cure, and fatality prevention. Various biomedical sensors are available or being developed to achieve early disease diagnostics with non-invasive or minimally invasive techniques, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), ultrasonic imaging, X-ray imaging, CT scan, optical coherent tomography (OCT), endoscopy, microscopy, spectroscopy, etc. Among these techniques, optical technologies, including various microscopy and spectroscopy approaches, provide the possibility to observe a large range of objects, from organs, cells, to molecules, with fast (ideally real-time) response and high spatial and spectral resolutions. In addition, to make the diagnostic tests of diseases, such as cancers, more accessible to the general public it is important to provide easy early diagnostic tools packaged as portable information devices. Such early diagnostics portable information devices must be highly sensitive, disease specific, reliable, inexpensive, easy to fabricate, fast, and compact.

This course will provide an overview of various optical biomedical sensors, including both imaging and spectroscopic techniques, and introduce some recent developments in biomedical sensors, such as nanoparticle surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) and its application in compact molecular sensors. Specifically, the following topics will be discussed: interaction of light with tissues, cells, and molecules; bioimaging including optical microscopy, endoscopic imaging, fluorescence imaging, and optical tomography; spectroscopy including absorption spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, and Raman spectroscopy; optical fiber surface enhanced Raman probes for biomedical applications.

Summary: Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) is a photonic technology that is able to increase the number of wavelengths in the same fiber, thus achieving higher aggregate bandwidth that exceeds 1 Tbit/s. Currently, WDM technology is considered the only optical communications technology for the present and future to be deployed in access as well as long-haul and ultra-long haul applications and in various network topologies. WDM is made possible by new photonic technology that brought to bear new photonic components. Among them are optical filters, modulators, gratings, optical amplifiers, couplers, splitters, optical add-drop multiplexers (OADM), optical cross-connects, tunable lasers, superfast and sensitive photodetectors, optical switches, polarizers, compensators and equalizers and new improved fiber. This tutorial identifies the photonic phenomena that determine the bounds of photonic transmission and countermeasure strategies, DWDM principles, optical components, systems and networks.

Summary: This course provides an introductory, tutorial-type overview of key optoelectronic devices for optical communication systems, specifically, semiconductor lasers, photodetectors, optical modulators, and some WDM components. The course covers a broad range of devices with an emphasis on fundamental device physics and operating principles. Important performance parameters including design tradeoffs will also be discussed. The laser section will discuss applications and the types of lasers that are utilized for specific systems. Topics include multiple quantum well lasers, distributed feedback lasers, wavelength tunable lasers and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers. Photodetector topics will cover wide-bandwidth PINs and avalanche photodiodes as well as receivers with optical preamplification. State-of-the-art integrated receiver circuits will also be discussed. In the modulator section Mach-Zehnder interferometers, and quantum-confined-Stark-effect devices will be covered. There will be a brief description of recent developments in optical switching using MEMs technology.

Summary: This course presents an introduction as well as reference materials for professionals working in solid-state lighting. Course materials include the operating principles, device physics, fabrication, and applications of light-emitting diodes. Course materials also include a detailed discussion of daylight illumination sources, planckian sources, human vision, eye sensitivity, photometric and radiometric quantities, and color rendering capabilities of light sources. After completing this course you should be able to develop and understanding of: The operating principles of light-emitting diodes; The principles of human vision, planckian sources, photometric and radiometric quantities, color rendering, and the color-rendering index; Areas for present and future applications of solid-state lighting devices.

Summary: This course describes the state-of-the-art of tunable lasers, tunable laser technologies and control of tunable lasers. It also includes a brief introduction to the basics of semiconductor lasers, as well as background on DFB lasers, in particular how a grating works as a wavelength selective element in DFB and DBR lasers. Tuning mechanisms and tuning properties will be described, and the operation of modified structures with extended tuning range will be explained, including sampled gratings and super structure gratings. The properties of codirectional couplers and the use of these in tunable lasers will be discussed. Devices such as external cavity lasers, wavelength selectable lasers, and tunable VCSELs, will also be described. Throughout the course numerous examples of laser structures from the recent technical literature will be presented. Practical issues such as characterization, operation, and control of tunable lasers, as well as switching speed and reliability, will be included.